Davina and Dolgrin follow down the crypt as well, carefully making their way past all the alcoves in which something nasty is bound to be hiding;
BMO hears nothing at the doors. Cracking one open reveals the room the Two stated in and the stairs back up to the higher level.
As Davina walks past the second set of crypts, she suddenly finds two spiders scurrying around her feet.
These are skull spiders. They tend to take up residence in skulls and have a poisonous sting.
Taken completely by surprise, both spiders manage to sting Davina before she even realizes they are there.
You are poisoned. Take 1 point of Con damage.
Dolgrin:
Davina:
BMO:
spiders:
spiders:
The spiders continue trying to sting poor flat-footed Davina's feet, to no avail.
While feeling that the stings certainly had some oomph to them, she shakes off whatever the spiders tried to fill her with. She also recognizes them right away, .
She then swings her dagger down at one of them;
, but misses as the critter scurries around her feet.
Dolgrin comes trotting up to her, muttering under his breath, so as not to wake any other potential adversaries hiding in the alcoves, about Gorum and his desire for destruction, and he absolutely obliterates one of the spiders;
BMO also comes back up to Davina to help out, and snatches the other spider as it scampers away from Dolgrin's blade, and unwittingly towards BMO ;
"Guys, Guys! We're back where we started! We've been going in a circle! Well, also keep in mind that the runes are not really. Although. If we. Spells? Why..?" he trails off into Azlanti musings. But at least he managed to convey the core message, that, to be fair, Dolgrin probably had worked out pretty accurately by now himself.
In his haste to get in on squishing the spiders biting Davina's feet, BMO failed to realize that he seems to have picked up his own spidery shadows.
"Dammit!"
BMO Quickly jumps back a little (5 ft step), exposing the spiders on the floor, and swings his daggers at them, one at a time;
Dolgrin steps up, towards the critter on the floor, and lets rip a solid Gorumite malevolence;
but only succeeds in striking the floor, chipping it a little.
Davina brings her dagger down upon the remaining spider, hellbent on snuffing it out;
but also she finds only stone with her blade.
The final spider 5-ft scuries back around BMO's feet, but BMO doesn't let it get too close.
Dolgrin is tired of this spider scurrying as well as it does, and thinks it's high time someone dealt with the problem. Preferably in the name of Gorum. Dolgrin steps up to BMO, and smashes the spider on the floor;
As it turns out, Dolgrin is nowhere near adequately in control of his rage, and not only does he miss the spider completely, but he misses also BMO by only a hair. The spider somehow makes a mocking sound at the dwarf.
Swearing in Azlanti, about Dolgrin's lack of aim, BMO lets his daggers fly at the critter on the ground;
one dagger connects;
BMO handily carves up the spider. He then looks for more;
BMO is quite certain that all the spiders have been properly squashed. At least the ones in this room...
Davina and the other two of the Two walk into the room where they first came down. Davina sits down for a minute, while BMO and Dolgrin discuss how to get down to the skeletal champion.
After some back and forth, they agree that they should check out the door to the east, but they do recognize that they, somehow, need to find their way downwards a ways, to get to the champion's level.
BMO walks up to the eastern door, and listens intently;
So does Dolgrin;
.
Dolgrin's breathing is so heavy that BMO asks him to step back a little, so he can hear properly;
.
If there are no ominous sounds on the other side, nor any traps (add +1 to his Perc), BMO opens the doors, and peers inside.
Whilst waiting for BMO to check the remaining unopened door for traps, Davina notices the graffiti scrawled onto the wall that the Two were unable to make sense of before. Perhaps recent experiences have provided some context?
My heart beats on the wrong side of my chest, or is it right? Is left right, or is it wrong? I don't know what it means, or why.
BMO does not hear anything at the door. It takes him several minutes to pick the lock, but once he does, he finds an L-shaped room with a large statue of a tall feather emblazoned with a large open eye in the corner. Although it appears to be carved from stone, the entire statue gleams with a golden-green iridescence. A pair of stone doors stands in the east wall in the short leg of the L.
The statue is of the Peacock Spirit, a esoteric got of ancient Thassilon concerned with the mind, body, and soul.
There's a hidden compartment in the statue that contains a single green feather. One of the Two will eventually figure out that it functions as a feather token (bird).
The following inscription is carved into the floor between the western doors and the statue:
Though veiled behind the plumage of the soul, the Eye still sees, unblinking, through all the ages, from the beginning to the end of time. When the Three are One, and the spirit becomes flesh, the Seal may be opened and the Sleepers awakened. And the glorious apocalypse shall consume us all.
The eastern doors have a strange depression where they meet. Upon closer examination it is obvious that this is actually a solid piece of stone that is carved to look like a pair of doors.
"Hey, guys, this makes more sense now! Someone else has clearly been down here. Someone like us, that came down to do something, or to explore, or... I don't know. They certainly must have found the same mirror chamber we did..."
She then gets up with BMO, and looks into the passage to the east.
Moving slowly, taking note of any details, she makes her way towards the statue;
In particular, she tries to assess the statues liveliness, casting Detect Magic, and feeling for other clues as to how deadly the statue might be.
"BMO, do you see any kind of traps here? On the other side, the statue had some runes on it that you thought were dangerous, maybe it's the same here? Also, Dolgrin, help me with these inscriptions. It seems religious of some kind, but I don't recognize them."
BMO follows Davina, and takes a long hard look at the statue and the room in general;
(+1 for traps).
He proceeds to walk right on up to the statue, but does not touch it.
"Sorry, Dav, I cannot seem to recall any of this either. Perhaps it has to do with the really old stuff, Rune Lords, or whatever BMO has mentioned before?"
BMO and Davina don't see any traps. With detect magic, Davina sees a faint evocation aura around the statue (similar to but somewhat stronger than what a light spell would have). Otherwise seems like a stone statue - no signs of animation or runes. No one has any reason (other than paranoia) to suspect traps of any sort.
BMO, with considerable unease, makes his way to the other side of the statue, picking up the feather on the way, now standing right by the door leading east. He listens carefully;
. Not trusting in his own ability to sense traps or hear monsters, seeing as there were no traps detected here, where the totally should have been some traps, he wants Davina's expert opinion.
She comes down as well, and listens at the door;
.
Unless any of them feel like there is danger afoot, they push open the door, and look beyond.
Dolgrin hangs back a little, as they don't want to deal with his Duergar lungs right now.
No one can hear anything through the stone. After failing to push the doors open, BMO realizes that these are not real doors at all but stone carved to look like doors and no amount of pushing, lock-picking or smashing will get the Two through.
Defeated by the door, BMO suggests they make their way back over the walkway above the central statue room, and look into the corridor leading north from around the mirror rooms.
Back at the skeletons, BMO asks that they all sneak, and that Dolgrin hangs back a little, to let Davina fire a couple arrows or so, to draw them out.
Davina agrees to BMO's idea, and sneaks down, towards where BMO has said the skeletons are lurking.
When she can barely see them at the edge of her vision, she fires an arrow at the closest one across the corridor;
.
Davina's armor impales the skeleton's chain shirt below its ribcage, missing any bones.
Dolgrin:
Davina:
BMO: <- dropped tie
skeleton:
skeleton:
skeleton: <- dropped tie
skeleton:
Davina fires another arrow at the skeleton she tried to hit before;
, and this time connects rather handsomely with the skeletons sternum; .
; Davina knows all the stuffs about regular skeletons (here's to hoping these guys are regular skeletons...)
She remains in place, waiting for the skeletons to come closer, and for Dolgrin to come up the stairs.
Dolgrin rushes up the stairs, and right past BMO and Davina, ready to play the xylophone.
Despite knowing that his shortbow is unlikely to do much against the skeletons, BMO fires it, and otherwise remains in place, waiting for the skeletons to lumber towards them, eager to get on the opposite side of them, so he has them between himself and Dolgrin.
Although Davina's arrow does indeed hit a skelatal sternum, it doesn't have enough power behind it to do more than just kinda stick there. Davina knows all the stuff about these boring regular skeletons.
BMO's arrow, however, sever's one of the skeleton's necks, crumbling it to dust.
The skeletons step out of their alcoves and return fire, missing every target.
Seeing that the skeletons remain in place, firing arrows, Dolgirn charges the closest one
To his dismay, he misses.
BMO also charges, past Dolgrin, and tries to strike at the skeleton to the right
Davina moves closer to the skeletons (and the other Two) and fires another arrow, this one at the skeleton Dolgrin failed to strike;
, but she misses.
Since Davina clearly shot her arrow *before* the other Two charged, she doesn't take a -4 penalty for shooting into melee and hits her target. Which is clearly the skeleton *behind* Dolgrin's intended target since she knows he can't move very fast. It explodes in a cloud of dust.
Dolgrin's skeleton lashes out at BMO with a nasty clawed hand as BMO races past it but only grabs thin air.
The lone remaining skeleton drops its bow and tries to slash Dolgrin and BMO with its nasty claws, wildly missing BMO...actually, it's hard to say which of the Two that claw was intended for since it kinda went somewhere between them...but nailing Dolgrin right in the face.
BMO steps around the skeleton, lets his daggers rain down upon the jenga tower;
One dagger connects, and with a twist, BMO disconnects the skeleton's pelvis from its spine;
After handling the skeleton, snuffing Dolgrin of his kill, BMO gets his bearings, investigating the alcoves the skeletons hid in, in case there are some hidden passageways or other interesting features to further look into; .
If he does not find anything, he carefully continues down the hallway, looking for traps, monsters and doors; .
Dolgrin sits down for a minute, rubbing his chin where the skeleton nabbed him, while Davina keeps him company. By the time Dolgrin is on his feet again, BMO is back with news about what lies ahead.
BMO finds a secret door in the western alcove. It does not appear to be locked. About 10 feet after the southern hallway curves east there is a set of closed, unlocked double doors.
Excited about the secret door, BMO comes back to it after seeing the boring old regular doors at the end of the hallway. He then gently opens the secret door, and peeks inside .
Davina, being right there, also takes a look
The secret door opens to a narrow hallway. There is a single unlocked door to the south and a 90deg western turn to the north. There is a faint smell of acrid chemicals and Davina can make out the faint sound of cursing coming from the north.
BMO carefully makes his way north towards the sounds Davina heard , peeking around every corner to make sure there is nothing about to jump him, .
Peeking around the second corner, directly north, BMO sees two creatures he does not quite recognize, other than that they look pretty zombie-like. Assuming they did not spot him, he makes his way back to Davina and Dolgrin to plan an angle of attack.
While BMO is busy to the north, Davina stands at the southward facing door, listening for trouble, . If she feels certain there is nothing beyond it about to jump her, she carefully opens the door and peeks inside, .
After a short while, BMO comes back down the hallway, and prompts her to try and take a look herself, at the two creatures to the north; she quickly casts Guidance on herself, to aid her stealth;
. She sees the two creatures, , and recognize them immediately. She returns to Dolgrin, and they all figure that a good idea would be to try and draw them out into to corridor, one by one, and deal with them like that.
Davina and Dolgrin line up, one 5ft step to either side of the entrance to the corridor, while BMO walks back up the corridor to shoot the closest monster with his bow.
BMO sneaks back up the corridor, , and lines up a shot at the closest undead;
.
He misses, but still manages to catch the creature's attention, and moves back out the corridor.
If the monster does not follow BMO, he tries again in the same way, with the goal of getting the damn thing to move out into the trap Davina and Dolgrin has prepared.
The closer creature is indeed a zombie. The further one seems to be a living human. Although BMO does his best to be sneaky, he must have kicked a loose stone or something because the human looks directly at BMO's head peaking around the corner and says "Hey! You! What are you doing in my lab? GET OUT!"
Although Davina does not hear anything through the southern door, she hears the shout coming from the north before she has a chance to open it.
BMO immediately retreats from his position, motioning to Davina as he comes down the passage, and all Two stand outside the door while BMO swiftly tells them what he saw and heard.
Davina and Dolgrin agree to hang back, weapons at the ready, listening for anything that might be making it's way out from the passageway.
Hearing that there is a human afoot, Dolgrin prepares to inflict the guy with Advanced Scurvy at the first opportunity
After waiting for a few very tense minutes, there is no sign of anyone or anything following BMO out of the corridor.
BMO moves up carefully, taking care not to kick any rocks anywhere , and he keeps his senses sharp, listening for trouble, as he finds it strange that nothing came of his previous intrusion . Upon reaching the corner, he readies his bow, and lets a bolt fly right in the gut of the zombie; .
Davina carefully follows BMO, keeping in sight of him around corners.
BMO does not see any traps, however he must be clanking more than usual because before he even pokes his head around the corner he hears the human loudly muttering "...bloody crypt creatures...work in peace...well Mr. Marrow...be dealt with...fresh bodies..." As BMO misses his shot at the zombie, he sees the human drinking some type of potion.
Dolgrin:
Davina:
BMO:
zombie:
human:
BMO charges the zombie, and using his on-hand dagger, he slashes the it something fierce;
Davina follows BMO in, and fires an arrow at the human, but misses as usual;